Publicity Chair Michelle Clancy

San Jose Mercury News- Steve Wozniak at DAC, Mike Cassidy

Steve Wozniak will always be known as one of the Steves who founded Apple (AAPL).

And
there is no question he was a key force in shaping the company that
played a major role in shaping the personal computer revolution and
Silicon Valley itself. But he is a Renaissance geek, a guy who's
sponsored rock festivals, taught fifth-graders and supported the Silicon
Valley ballet, the Children's Discovery Museum and any number of valley
causes.

Though Silicon Valley is still home, Wozniak is currently
the chief scientist for Fusion-io, a Salt Lake City-based storage
company that went public last week.

I sat down with Wozniak
recently for a conversation in front of about 800 attendees at the
Design Automation Conference (DAC 2011), an annual gathering that brings
together engineers and others with an interest in chip design. Here are
some highlights from our talk, edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: When did you know that you wanted to be an engineer?

A:
Very young I decided, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to be an engineer. I love
this math. I love equations." Everything you calculate in engineering
works or doesn't work. It's like truth. And truth is the highest good
there is. I actually thought engineers are the most perfect, honest
people in the world.

Q: Steve Jobs recently announced Apple's new cloud-based services. What are your thoughts about that?

A:
I remember back about 15, 16, 17 years ago, at my father's wake, Steve
Jobs was there and he said he hooked up a T1 line to his house. Steve
said, "Everything is going to be out there. It just sits out there on
the Web somewhere -- all your data and everything. And it just comes to
you." He was always so intent, this cloud is where everything is going
to exist.

Q: When you look at Apple today, do you ever wish you were still involved in the day-to-day operations of the company?

A:
I don't often wish I was. I kind of admire the people that are involved
in it. I'll go back and watch Steve Jobs, from 10 years back. His brain
was 10 years ahead of mine, thinking these forward, visionary thoughts.
And I was just very, very good at a particular type of product at a
certain time. Both of us really needed each other to start the company. I
like startups. I like what Apple was when we started. You sit down with
some engineer friends and you go into a lab; and you try to build a
little demo. It's kind of like you're inventing stuff.

Q: Steve Jobs sure gets a lot of attention. Do you ever feel left out?

A:
I don't want attention. I never did. I was shy. I grew up shy. You
know, somebody -- to run a company, to make great products -- has to do a
lot of saying no to people. You've got to be able to tell some people:
"This is not good enough." "We're looking for higher standards" "We need
better people." You've got to be willing to take some of those nasty
stands. And a soft guy like me is not running a company.

When
we started Apple we had a deal. My deal was, I would just do
engineering. I'll do it well. I'm not going to step on anybody else's
toes. And Steve Jobs' role was to learn how to run every department of a
company and be a CEO. That was defined. We actually said it in words.
We were in our young 20s back then. No business experience. No money.
Nobody to loan us money. Nothing.

Q: In
"iWoz" you write about a time well before Apple when you and Steve Jobs
got jobs dressing in costumes at Westgate Mall. What was that all about?

A:
I was an engineer, with an engineer's salary, but Steve Jobs needed a
ride down to De Anza College to look for job postings. OK, I drove him
down during lunchtime and found there is a job to play "Alice in
Wonderland" characters, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, in a mall. I
said, "Oh my god, I love this idea of somehow being good to kids some
way."

We both applied and they gave us
both the job. So I took a week of vacation from my engineering job so I
could dress up and get paid minimum wage and entertain children. I loved
that job. Years later, I mention it to Steve, like this is one of the
great things we did together, and he said, "Oh no. That was a lousy
job." OK, so we saw it from different angles.

Q: Now we're into the serious stuff. How in the world did you end up on "Dancing with the Stars?"

A:
I don't dance. Believe me, I go to a wedding and I stay put in my
chair. We turned them down for about a year. The last time I turned them
down, a friend of mine said, "Steve, this show needs somebody good like
you on it. Somebody with your type of thinking and caring and
everything."

And I said, "OK, I'll do it. They teach. They train you." And I didn't realize that friend had never seen the show.

1.
In the early 1980s, he owned the Mayfair Theater in San Jose. He'd
swing by most nights after a day at Apple and get some extra work done
on his laptop while movies played.

2. When he was
working at HP in the 1970s, Woz started a dial-a-joke service that he
ran from home. He'd record the daily joke using a thick, Eastern
European accent.

3. He is a notorious prankster.
He's pulled too many to pick a favorite, but offers this advice: "Wait
for my prank book," which will be released "about the year I finally
don't care if they send me to prison."

4. Woz is
an ardent player of Segway polo -- polo you play on a Segway. He's a
pioneer of the sport and the founder of an international tournament
known as the Woz Challenge Cup, which takes place this weekend in
Folsom.

5. After bestowing upon civilization a
new vision of computing, Woz blessed couch potatoes with an even more
revolutionary device: the universal remote control. Woz says his was the
first.